


Leaf

by StrangeBlueGlow



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 02:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11864646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBlueGlow/pseuds/StrangeBlueGlow
Summary: Cassidy watched the way Tulip swayed and blinked hard occasionally, fighting off sleep, and couldn’t help but sigh from his spot leaning against the door frame to the living room.





	Leaf

Tulip sat on the couch, turned to look out the window rather than at the tv for a few moments. That’s all she was doing, yet she still swayed subtly like an autumn leaf in the wind, ready to fall at any moment but stubbornly hanging on. 

Jesse had gone out. After a week on edge, he probably deserved it. Cassidy certainly couldn’t begrudge him for it. Tulip might, but she could begrudge a lot of people a lot of things and not be in the wrong for it. Even if she were, a lot of people would forgive her anyway.

Cassidy could have gone out. He’d be lying if he said he couldn’t use a hefty hit of the area’s choice opiate and a good time with anyone willing whose company he could afford. He’d been cooped up, too, and Denis would be fine on his own for a few hours now. But with Denis sorted, all of Cassidy’s worry and concern was freed to be directed at Tulip. He watched the way Tulip swayed and blinked hard occasionally, fighting off sleep, and couldn’t help but sigh from his spot leaning against the door frame to the living room.

The sound caught Tulip’s attention, snapping as awake as she could manage and focusing on Cassidy in the doorway. “What?” she snapped, schooling her blank expression into an annoyed one with some effort.

“Can’t a man sigh in his own damn home?” Cassidy asked, fixing a grin on his face to hide the concern and raising his hands in a gesture of innocence as he walked over to the couch and joined Tulip on it.

“Ain’t it your son’s home?” Tulip asked, her expression skeptical now, though she was doing nothing to protest Cassidy taking the spot next to her.

“Yeah, well,” Cassidy chuckled, “Denis don’t mind, so, close enough.” His expression softened as he got settled, the way it always did when he was alone with Tulip.

Tulip bristled when Cassidy looked at her like that, with his eyes soft and looking so young that he’d have a right to fall so fast and hard as he did. “You’re worrying about me,” she said flatly, having to look away.

“Aye,” he admitted, leaning in a bit when Tulip looked away, “People who care tend to on occasion.”

“I don’t need to be worried about,” she huffed, still pointedly looking away from Cassidy.

Cassidy settled his elbow against the  back of the couch and rested his chin in his hand, still watching Tulip as she fought to stay awake and annoyed. “That’s what Jesse said. I don’t believe either of you for a minute.”

Tulip turned to look at Cassidy then with a glare. “And why not?”

The look didn’t faze Cassidy at all. “‘Cause you ain’t slept a wink all week and Jesse’s head is so far up his own arse he wouldn’t notice if you were on fire in front of him.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” Tulip protested immediately.

“You do,” Cassidy retorted, but he continued swiftly, “but I wasn’t saying you did just now. No need to get defensive.”

Tulip didn’t have anything to say to that, looking away again and starting to drift off into that not-sleep state she’d spent most of the day in.

Cassidy watched her for another moment or two before laying back on the couch, head rested on the arm and his legs angling to the floor only because of the space Tulip was taking up preventing him from stretching out completely. When Tulip looked back at him, he smiled, and patted the bit of couch he wasn’t taking up. “Lay down with me love. No need to sleep. Just lay down for a bit.”

“Why should I lay down with you?” She raised an eyebrow skeptically, crossing her arms as she waited for an explanation.

“I’ll stop worrying about ya for a few minutes if you’re somewhere horizontal. You’re looking like a stiff breeze will knock you that way if it were so inclined, and it’d give me some ease if you put yourself in that position on your own terms before that happens,” he explained, watching as her expression didn’t change one bit for a moment before tacking on a, “Please, love?”

Tulip’s resolve started to waiver then just a little, and Cassidy could tell, but she made her best efforts to hold strong still. “What if Jesse came in and saw us curled up together on the couch? You think he’d like that, Cass?”

“If he gives half of a flying fuck about you, which I think he does, even if he’s too damn wrapped up in himself to show it,” Cassidy said, muttering part of the sentiment, “he’ll think I’m getting you to sleep and he wouldn’t mind a damn bit.”

That didn’t impress Tulip any, and she stayed still for a long moment before shutting her eyes. “Fine. For a few minutes. Just to get you to shut up about it,” she relented, pointedly not looking at the way Cassidy grinned as she shifted on the couch to let him stretch his legs out over the length and to settle against him.

Cassidy held back from wrapping his arm around Tulip, from being anything more than just a surface to lay on, and not a particularly comfortable one at that, but aside from the obvious very selfish reasons of wanting to have Tulip near him, he could tell if she was actually sleeping if they were laying like this or just pretending to as to humor him, and Tulip getting rest was really the important thing.

“You ain’t got a heartbeat,” Tulip grumbled, as she shifted, trying to get comfortable, or really just making an excuse for herself to not fall asleep, “it’s weird.”

“Aye,” Cassidy chuckled, “being a vampire’ll do that. Don’t breathe when I’m not planning on talking, neither. Landed me in the morgue a few times. In the ground once, too.”

“But you still bleed,” Tulip replied. It was a statement, more than a question, but Cassidy was intended to answer it anyway.

“Water balloon ain’t got a heartbeat neither, but liquid comes out when one gets a hole in it,” he said with a light shrug, as to not shift Tulip too much.

Tulip looked at Cassidy for a long moment, as if she was considering the explanation, before putting her head back down in acceptance. “Still weird,” she added, before shutting her eyes.

Cassidy couldn’t help but laugh at that a bit, taking the chance to wrap his arm around her to keep Tulip in place. He didn’t bother saying anything though, noting that Tulip had closed her eyes, and within a minute her breathing had slowed into the gentle rhythm of sleep.

She stayed that way for all of five minutes before startling awake again.

There was a soft sigh that Cassidy tried to muffle as he noticed her waking. “What’s keeping you from sleeping, love?” he finally broke down and asked.

A long silence followed, Tulip not wanting to explain, not to Cassidy, but again being too tired to hold back. “When I sleep… he’s there. The Saint. He… touches me…”  she swallowed hard then, her hand coming up to touch her throat lightly, as if to assure herself that there wasn’t a hand around her throat, “and then. Your fingers start falling from the sky, like french fries in the tv commercials, all around. I don’t like it. That’s why I don’t sleep.”

Cassidy nodded as she spoke, thinking a bit before bringing his free hand up to clasp one of hers, then bring them both up for her to see. “The Saint is in Hell. And my fingers are all right here. All of ‘em, whole and perfect as the day I got bit. I’d lose all of ‘em again to protect you as best I could a thousand times over. It didn’t bother me one bit, couldn’t regret it if I tried. You’re safe, love.”

Tulip looked at Cassidy’s long, pale, tattooed fingers intertwined with hers for a long few moments. She wasn’t sure she believed that she was safe. What even passed for safe anymore with God missing and Jesse having super powers and everything from the only home she’d ever known to Harry Connick Jr.’s house being blown off the map? But despite all of that, she was still here. Cassidy was still here, with his fingers intact and his arm around her, telling her that he’d protect her. So maybe, just maybe, she could take a few moments and let herself sleep.


End file.
